Schild moves into the legends arena
With her fifth win on the bounce, Marlies Schild edged closer to the all time consecutive wins record. In 2001 Janica Kostelic put eight wins on the board before anyone could beat her and Vreni Schneider the same number in 1989. After two “close” calls in Courchevel and Lienz, this was Schild back to her devastating best. Schild made the rest of the field watch and learn as she carved out a nine tenths of a second lead on the first run and the extended that by another five tenths of the second run over Tina Maze and Michaela Kirchgasser in third.
Speaking after the race, Schild knows that with two weeks to the next slalom, she has time to train a bit more if she is to keep the winning run going. “I know also that the others have two weeks to train as well,” she admitted. While the thirty year old from Austria is now gunning for the most number of slalom wins (currently held by Vreni Schneider with 34; Schild has 32) she knows that she is not unbeatable. Asked how the rest could beat her, Michaela Kirchgasser explained that “we have to ski well and make perfect turns while Marlies has to have an off day.” Sounds simple but in the form and determination that Schild is showing, this is no easy task.
With five wins this season and having won in Zagreb four times out of eight races held here, Schild likes the place. The fog may have impeded her rivals but for Schild this was another good day at the office.
There were a number of other big winners in the race. Despite being hit by a stomach upset that caused her to miss inspection for the first run, Lindsey Vonn, put in a devastating second run that saw her jump up the leader board from 24th to ninth place after the second run. Skiing the first run blind, Vonn still managed to get in the thirty and attacked the second run that saw her post a run that gave her a sizeable lead. While this was eventually taken away by the nineteen year old from Sweden, Emelie Wikstroem, Vonn was happy with her nights work.
For Wikstroem, this was the result of a lot of hard work and dedication in coming back from illness. Wikstroem has had a lot of trouble with asthma and this was her best result of her career. Wikstroem would move into seventh just ahead of her compatriot Therese Borssen.
Tanja Poutiainen took sixth. The Finnish racer was a little dismayed that she “only” went into second after her run as she felt that she had had a good second run. “Still I am happy after Lienz which was not very easy for me,” she explained after the race.
With a third Swede in the top ten, Maria Pietilae Holmner dropped one place with a slightly scrappy run. Manuela Moelgg took fourth and must be wondering what she has to do to win a race on the World Cup. She attacked from 7th on the first run and took the lead. Moelgg held the lead going into the best three from the first run.
First down was Kirchgasser and she skied well. “I made a small mistake on the top,” she explained afterwards but with the demonstration of joy as the green light showed, she must have felt that she was going to add to her World Cup Victory list. Kirchgasser just had time to get into the leaders enclosure before Tina Maze came down and dislodged her.
Maze has won on the World Cup before and with the crowd behind her, she was gunning for it. Schild may have had almost a second lead but Maze was putting pressure on the Austrian. 8,000 Croatians were behind her as they had no home racers to support. With Schild at the top of the course, calm and relaxed and thinking of just how she was going to ski the second run, it would be either Maze or Schild to win the 8th Snowqueen trophy.
With nine tenths of a second lead from the first run, Schild was in control. By the first split two hundredths had gone yet by the second split Schild only had her self to race, the lead was almost a second. This was almost a prefect run but this was a run that had the better of all the rest of the racers: Schild is living on another planet compared to the rest of the field. By the time she crossed the line the lead over the rest of the field was 1.40 seconds and 2.27 to Kirchgasser in third.
With the news that Maribor is green at the moment, the next technical races may move to Kranjska Gora instead. Kranjska Gora is more commonly associated with the men and the hard piste may just be more to the suiting of Schild. The rest have two weeks to train hard and see if they can stop Schild making it six in a row…
